By PAUL EDMUND NORMAN
Thompson looked down at the body of the young girl, Polly Bartram. There were holes in her ears where they had been pierced, but there were no earrings. Other than to him, there was no significance in that. If the parents were asked whether or not Polly had left the house on the day of the murder wearing earrings, the most likely answer would be that they could not remember. And for the time being, he did not want even to ask them such a question. If she had been wearing them, she could quite easily have removed them some time along the way, and lost them. It was really not significant.
The girl's face was exceptionally pretty, and he could see why Clitheroe had been attracted to her. She did not look like the sort of girl who was sexually promiscuous, but then innocence can be an aid to deception. Pretty, pale, clean.
No make-up, no lipstick, no eye shadow, no powder, no nail varnish, none of those things that a fifteen-year-old would already have begun experimenting with.
If she had been promiscuous, it was simply a matter of bad luck that she had run into a relative who had been unlucky in his own sexual encounters, a situation that had led to the development of a warped and twisted, psychopathic mind. Bad luck that she had run into a pathological killer, a sadistic maniac.....
As a police officer, Thompson was aware of the narrow dividing line between sanity and insanity. Clitheroe had evidently walked that line for many years. The rejection by Polly Bartram had been the final straw.
What had he said?
Tarts.
Make-up, earrings, they made young girls look like tarts. They dressed up in provocative clothes and gave you the come on, then let you down with a rejection so open, so profound, you wanted to kill them.
Maybe.
Maybe the circumstances had to be much worse for his own threshold to come anywhere near a sentiment, a dangerous feeling like that. He did not know. But even if he did not sympathise with Clitheroe, he was beginning to understand how the man's mind must have been working. Rejection by his mother and father in favour of a new baby brother. Rejection at school by a girl who rejected nobody, and finally, after a string of murders, a pretty young cousin giving him the come-on then rejecting him. The penultimate murder.
And what about in between? Who else had he assaulted, raped, murdered in his quest for a suitable non-rejecting partner?
Thompson drove out to the murder spot and parked his car in the same lay-by that Clitheroe had used. The area where the body had been discovered was still roped off, and beyond it were the trees and bushes Clitheroe had described.
The area had been thoroughly searched at the time, but it was quite possible they had missed something.
He wished he had asked Clitheroe what kind of earrings they had been, but he thought he already knew. They would not be small, unobtrusive earrings. They would be pendants, long, dangling earrings, he was certain.
He walked about among the trees and the bushes, looking down, occasionally parting the leaves of the grasses, but not expecting to find anything. There had been a lot of rain lately, they could have been washed down into the earth, they could be in the middle of one of the large, wild bramble bushes that were dotted about the trees. It would take a full-scale search to find them.
If they were there.
Only by finding Polly Bartram's earrings could he hope to satisfy himself that Clitheroe had acted as he claimed to have acted, out of a desire to prevent the girl, no, the girls, all of them, from 'coming on' to men like him with their dress and their make-up. He did not hold out much hope of finding anything.
But at the foot of one of the trees, there was an empty crisp packet, trapped by a root so that it would not blow away, exactly where Clitheroe had said it would be. How could they have missed it? There had been no mention of crisps in Clitheroe's testimony, only the flask of cold drink.
All the same.....
Thompson picked up the packet, almost afraid to look inside in case the earrings were there. He did not know what he would do if he found the earrings. Something would have to be said about Clitheroe's state of mind, and the prosecution would lose out to the do-gooders, he was certain.
But there was nothing hard inside the pack, only a piece of cotton wool. Damp from the recent rain, and dirty. Dirty as though it had been used to clean something. It smelt faintly of petrol.
Polly's face.
Clitheroe had used the cotton wool to scrub the make-up off her face, and her nail varnish, then put it in the crisp packet and tossed it away into the bushes.
Polly Bartram, fifteen years old.
Murdered because she would not have sex with her cousin, nearly twice her age. Murdered because she was growing up, wanted to make herself look attractive, wanted to look nice, not for a boy, not for Clitheroe, not for anyone in particular, just wanted to look nice because it was nice to look nice, and nice to want to look nice......
Thompson crushed the crisp packet and threw it away from him in disgust. The cotton wool, which he supposed was evidence, and which he dared not bring as evidence, he thrust into his jacket pocket.
For a long while he sat, just sat on the fallen trunk of an oak tree near to the spot where Polly had been raped and strangled.
He felt the breeze ruffle his hair, and felt goose bumps forming on his arms, although he wore a jacket and an overcoat. Someone just walked over my grave, he thought.
No, I came back from my grave to walk over you.
Polly?
You can't let him get away with it.
I won't.
I won't!
This would not do. He had to return to the police station. He had to finish writing his evidence, his report for the pSallyecution. He did not want to see Clitheroe again, and Wilson had moved on to another case. He supposed the next time he would see Clitheroe would be in the dock.
He would not mention the earrings, or the cotton wool, or that Clitheroe had a hang-up about young girls wearing make-up, and earrings.
That would not help the prosecution.
That would help Clitheroe.
Or rather, it would help the army of do-gooders waiting to march in and say that Clitheroe was mentally unstable, needed help, shouldn't be locked away in an ordinary prison, should have special treatment, after a few years he'll be over his hang-ups, he'll be cured, ready to resume his place in society.
Ready to kill again.
Thompson had seen it happen before, and he was certain he would see it happen again.
Only not with Clitheroe.
Not this time.
It was murder.
Motiveless, brutal, sexual murder.
He would not let him get away with it. He would not tell the jury, the court, his colleagues, anybody, what Clitheroe had told him about the earrings and the make-up.
He owed it to Polly to keep it quiet.
During the trial Clitheroe asked for a piece of paper and a pen with which to scribble a note. It was duly written and passed to Thompson in a sealed envelope.
It said:
Do not say anything about the earrings, you know what will happen. They will say I am mad and should be locked away in a mental hospital. That isn't right, and you know it.....
He did not say anything about the earrings. He did not say anything about the make-up that Polly had worn on the day of her murder. He watched the prosecution present a concise and well thought out case and the jury had no option but to find Clitheroe guilty.
He kept the note for several years, then at the time of the move to their present address he bundled up a number of personal papers, unaware that Clitheroe's note was among them, and handed them over to his solicitor for safe-keeping in a security box at the solicitor's premises.
